Ethics, Leadership, and Air Conditioning
TWU's MBA students encounter values-based curriculum
When you buy a heater or air conditioner, you probably don’t expect your money to go toward micro-loans for businesses in the developing world. But that’s exactly what happens when customers purchase heaters at Jerry Braun’s company, Complete Heating and Air Conditioning Ltd., in Abbotsford, BC. Braun, a student of TWU’s School of Business MBA program, set up a website where customers can donate a percentage of their purchase to a charity of their choice.
“The idea of my corporate social responsibility website came from working in classes with professors Rick Goossen, and Murray MacTavish,” explains Braun. “We were talking about the principle of tithing in relation to business—how businesses should probably give a percentage of the profits they earn back to the community.”
Braun’s MBA stream, Management of the Growing Enterprise, focuses on social entrepreneurialism—creating sustainable businesses that not only make money, but also contribute to social good and positive change. “It is difficult,” says Braun, “because we are all challenged to think of how a Christian would run a business.”
TWU’s MBA program, launched just two years ago, offers streams in entrepreneurship, international business, and non-profit management. TWU is one of only two universities in Canada to offer the non-profit stream.
“Sitting in a classroom that recognizes the uniqueness of non-profit organizations is invigorating.”
Paul Goodyear ’09, a graduate of the non-profit stream and a member of the MBA’s first cohort of students, is cfo and corporate secretary for The Salvation Army in Canada. “When I first started working in the non-profit sector, its business models were considered second-rate,” explains Goodyear. “Sitting in a program that recognizes the uniqueness and complexity of non-profit organizations and examines the issues from a Christian worldview is invigorating.”
Goodyear completed the program while still working, as the entrepreneurial and non-profit streams can be completed part-time in 22 months. The international stream—a full-time program—takes 12 months to complete. “Our program is designed with a working person in mind,” explains MacTavish, Director of the MBA program. “Our professors work with students’ actual projects for their companies, and the project development helps every student in the class engage different work scenarios.”
Christian leadership and ethics are the main curricular focus in all of the streams. “We are the only Christian values-based MBA program in Canada,” says MacTavish. “This education is essential, because leading in business is always values-driven, and leaders are making ethical decisions, good or bad, all the time.”
by J.J. Hutcheson '08
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